ff the hyenas, who would be
sure to dig up and devour the body before the following day. The
grave of a Damara chief is represented on page 302. Now and then a
chief orders that his body shall be left in his own house, in which
case it is laid on an elevated platform, and a strong fence of
thorns and stakes built round the hut.

The funeral ceremonies being completed, the new chief forsakes the
place and takes the whole of the people under his command. He
remains at a distance for several years, during which time he wears
the sign of mourning, i.e., a dark-colored conical cap, and round
the neck a thong, to the ends of which are hung two small pieces of
ostrich-shell. When the season of mourning is over, the tribe
return, headed by the chief, who goes to the grave of his father,
kneels over it, and whispers that he has returned, together with the
cattle and wives which his father gave him. He then asks for his
parent's aid in all his undertakings, and from that moment takes the
place which his father filled before him. Cattle are then
slaughtered, and a feast held to the memory of the dead chief and in
honor of the living one, and each person present partakes of the
meat, which is distributed by the chief himself. The deceased chief
symbolically partakes of the banquet. A couple of twigs cut from the
tree of the particular eanda to which the deceased belonged are
considered as his representative, and with this emblem each piece of
meat is touched before the guests consume it. In like manner, the
first pail of milk that is drawn is taken to the grave and poured
over it.

_CAVE BURIAL._

Natural or artificial holes in the ground, caverns, and fissures in
rocks have been used as places of deposit for the dead since the
earliest periods of time, and are used up to the present day by not only
the American Indians, but by peoples noted for their mental elevation
and civilization, our cemeteries furnishing numerous specimens of
artificial or partly artificial caves. As to the motives which have
actuated this mode of burial, a discussion would be out of place at this
time, except as may incidentally relate to our own Indians, who, so far
as can be ascertained, simply adopt caves as ready and convenient
resting places for their deceased relatives and friends.

In almost every State in the Union burial caves have been discovered,
but as there is more or less of identity bet